2 ms·

It means poor people will suffer. Overpopulated paces may suffer more. Places experiencing bad crops as well…. It’s not something to celebrate in detachment.

by mc32 5y ago

It means poor people will suffer. Overpopulated paces may suffer more. Places experiencing bad crops as well…. It’s not something to celebrate in detachment. [the market, and thus price of food staples, is global]

Gigachad 5y ago
More production will be moved from grain for cattle to growing food for humans. We can massively scale up our food production if we remove beef from the average diet.
- mc32 5y ago
  It means everything will get more expensive. Poor people also eat meats. Their staple grains will go up, and if the feed for chickens and cows goes up, so will their meat.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    I think the person you’re responding to is saying that it’s good that we’ll all be eating less meat. There’s an important point to be made about inequity and the decline of commodity meat, but that point doesn’t detract from the fact that it’s probably good for everyone involved and the planet for us to be eating less meat.
    - mc32 5y ago
      Yes, over time, that would be fine, but not a shock induced by the high prices of fertilizer that immediately affect prices --inducing glee in some because they don't see the immediate detrimental effects.
      - woodruffw 5y ago
        I agree that shocks generally aren't good. I'm also a meat eater, and I don't like paying more for meat. But I do simultaneously recognize that (1) meat should be more expensive than it is, and (2) that the "real" price of food is completely divorced from the actual price. In terms of our agricultural mean, there is no reason why every single American can't have cheap, healthy produce without having to devastate the environment. Our current pricing scheme is a product of the better part of a century of (good-intentioned) subsidies and stupendously wasteful distribution practices.
- goda90 5y ago
  Most agricultural land can't support food crops but can support ruminants.
  - dqv 5y ago
    That’s not an argument against dedicating existing cropland to human food production. The GP isn’t talking about pasture and rangeland. Just the huge amount of cropland used to grow feed for animal ag. And while we’re at it, let’s reform the ~40M acres [0] cropland used for grazing back to growing human feed. Then we can take the 127M acres of crops used to grow animal feed [1] and also dedicate that to human feed. All while reducing the animal populations and helping with the overgrazing happening on ~50% of range and pasture [2]. And to pre-empt the argument that food animals are fed the byproducts of human-consumption crops, go back to [1]. But yes feel free to feed them the byproducts… it’s just not going to be very much of their calories. [0]: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2012/march/data-feature-how-is-land-used/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2012/march/data-feature... [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/ [2]: https://www.nrdc.org/resources/grazing-operations-journey-better-beef https://www.nrdc.org/resources/grazing-operations-journey-be... unfortunately an ad for grass fed beef, but I think it says something that beef producers see the writing on the wall for the current methods affecting the environment

by mc32 5y ago

Gigachad 5y ago

More production will be moved from grain for cattle to growing food for humans. We can massively scale up our food production if we remove beef from the average diet.

mc32 5y ago
It means everything will get more expensive. Poor people also eat meats. Their staple grains will go up, and if the feed for chickens and cows goes up, so will their meat.
- woodruffw 5y ago
  I think the person you’re responding to is saying that it’s good that we’ll all be eating less meat. There’s an important point to be made about inequity and the decline of commodity meat, but that point doesn’t detract from the fact that it’s probably good for everyone involved and the planet for us to be eating less meat.
  - mc32 5y ago
    Yes, over time, that would be fine, but not a shock induced by the high prices of fertilizer that immediately affect prices --inducing glee in some because they don't see the immediate detrimental effects.
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      I agree that shocks generally aren't good. I'm also a meat eater, and I don't like paying more for meat. But I do simultaneously recognize that (1) meat should be more expensive than it is, and (2) that the "real" price of food is completely divorced from the actual price. In terms of our agricultural mean, there is no reason why every single American can't have cheap, healthy produce without having to devastate the environment. Our current pricing scheme is a product of the better part of a century of (good-intentioned) subsidies and stupendously wasteful distribution practices.
goda90 5y ago
Most agricultural land can't support food crops but can support ruminants.
- dqv 5y ago
  That’s not an argument against dedicating existing cropland to human food production. The GP isn’t talking about pasture and rangeland. Just the huge amount of cropland used to grow feed for animal ag. And while we’re at it, let’s reform the ~40M acres [0] cropland used for grazing back to growing human feed. Then we can take the 127M acres of crops used to grow animal feed [1] and also dedicate that to human feed. All while reducing the animal populations and helping with the overgrazing happening on ~50% of range and pasture [2]. And to pre-empt the argument that food animals are fed the byproducts of human-consumption crops, go back to [1]. But yes feel free to feed them the byproducts… it’s just not going to be very much of their calories. [0]: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2012/march/data-feature-how-is-land-used/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2012/march/data-feature... [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/ [2]: https://www.nrdc.org/resources/grazing-operations-journey-better-beef https://www.nrdc.org/resources/grazing-operations-journey-be... unfortunately an ad for grass fed beef, but I think it says something that beef producers see the writing on the wall for the current methods affecting the environment